The present invention relates generally to a system and method for tracking movement and production of semi-conductor devices at remotely located facilities within a world wide semi-conductor device manufacturing operation, and more particularly to a system that intelligently communicates the semi-conductor device manufacturing reference information to other corporate information systems in near real-time for use in accomplishing overall semi-conductor device manufacturing business objectives.
Large manufacturing companies typically have multiple manufacturing and storage facilities in geographically disbursed locations. Implementing a manufacturing tracking system that will track the overall manufacturing process in this type of a distributed manufacturing facilities arrangement is often difficult and ineffective. Traditionally, manufacturers have implemented stand alone computer implemented manufacturing tracking systems in each of its manufacturing facilities. Each of these systems function independent of the other tracking systems located at other manufacturing facilities. One of the problems associated with this kind of arrangement is that the individual tracking systems are not communicating with each other, nor are they coupled with other corporate systems in order to facilitate company and system-wide integration of manufacturing process information.
The lack of integration and coupling of the tracking systems at each manufacturing facility has serious drawbacks. For example, a large corporation having multiple manufacturing facilities needs to track the materials and products being manufactured in all of its facilities simultaneously. The information concerning materials or products manufactured in one facility may be relevant to materials and products being manufactured in another. The information from both facilities is relevant to the overall manufacturing strategy and how the combined manufacturing capacity of both facilities can be used to accomplish the overall business process. There is a need for a tracking system that integrates each stand alone system into a centralized manufacturing reference system that communicates with other corporate systems in order to assist in faster accomplishment of the overall business process.
Although there are currently computer implemented tracking systems that communicate the activities of product and material manufacture occurring at remote locations into other corporate systems, such systems lack the ability to seamlessly communicate the tracked manufacturing information to coupled corporate systems in a timely, organized and intelligent manner. There is a need for a system that can seamlessly communicate the tracked manufacturing information to the coupled corporate systems immediately upon request. The information communicated needs to be limited to only the information that is relevant to the corporate system or user requesting the information.
A prior art system arrangement which integrates remote stand alone device tracking systems into additional corporate systems is shown in FIG. 1. This integrated system refers to the system that tracks product, material production and other engineering data collected in remote facility locations using the WorkStream system. As the system architecture shown in FIG. 1 illustrates, there are systems that work directly against the WorkStream system, systems that work off of other systems that work off the WorkStream system, and systems that work off extracts that work off of the WorkStream system. The problem with this type of system architecture occurs from a systems and technology perspective. There are a myriad of technologies utilized amongst the individual systems that are communicating with the WorkStream system. For example, the WorkStream system may be a VAX/VMS platform, wherein the WorkStream database is an operational database running on DBMS, whereas the other stand-alone systems communicating with WorkStream may be operating on an Oracle database running on a Sun Server, or a Microsoft Access based application on a file mounted system on a Sun server. These stand alone systems or extracts also include databases of varying types, including, historical, financial, engineering analysis and operational information. Because of the prior art system architecture, all of the systems illustrated, which need data from the WorkStream system database to track information generated by the manufacturer""s product tracking system concerning information about products and materials being manufactured in a manufacturer""s facility, will not receive data at the same time. In addition, the significant use of historical data by the systems communicating with the WorkStream system leads to significant challenges when running the overall system in a manufacturing environment.
In addition, FIG. 1 illustrates that there are several systems within the prior art architecture that forward data received from the WorkStream system to other systems. For example, engineering data analysis system 122 is an extract that goes directly against the WorkStream system. The engineering data analysis system 122 forwards data it receives from the WorkStream system database to other systems. Similarly, extract 120 which is also directly interfaced with the WorkStream system forwards data received from the WorkStream system database to other systems. The multi-level communication and indirect routing of data within the overall system complicates the understanding of changes or improvements that occur on the floor of the manufacturing facility. Changes such as customizing the WorkStream system or enhancing the functionality of the WorkStream system are difficult to understand, because the down stream cascading effects on other systems resulting from changing the WorkStream system are not readily apparent.
The difficulty with the configuration of the product and material tracking system shown in FIG. 1 is that the platforms upon which each individual system that the WorkStream system communicates with is built, may include HP/UX, SUN/SOLARIS, VAX/VMS, RDB, VAX/DBMS, Oracle, or IBM Mainframes. All of these systems, some of which are not illustrated in FIG. 1, would be interacting or working in a heterogeneous environment from a technology perspective. Therefore, manufacturing changes that have to be made in order to satisfy the company""s business objectives or the company""s business needs are faced with tremendous challenges. These challenges result from the need to identify and perform an analysis of what the impact of making such changes would be on system information down stream from the WorkStream system. In many instances, because of the varying platforms, the modifications are not capable of being communicated across all systems and extracts and must be retrofit. In addition, the prior art system architecture is further complicated because there is a stand alone WorkStream system in operation at each particular location in a manufacture""s network of facilities. Therefore, for example, a year-end audit for inventory tracking, or a year-end audit for financial accounting practices, requires the consolidation of all the information in each WorkStream system at each facility location. This is a very cumbersome and labor intensive process for the Mainframe system. There is a need for a system that resolves the problems caused by the prior art system architecture.
Another problem resulting from the architecture of the prior art system described in FIG. 1, is that at any point in time, individuals at remote locations could have a situation where they are viewing a particular type of data and see two different data results at that point in time if the view into the system is done at two different points. Whether this data inconsistency is caught depends on when the particular extract or system the individual is accessing information through receives data from the WorkStream system database. There is a need for a system that collects and centralizes data from the individual stand alone WorkStream systems and coordinates distribution of all manufacturing reference data to the appropriate remote location systems at the appropriate time. The configuration of the prior art system shown in FIG. 1 does not allow for this level of coordinated interaction and thus results in data being communicated to different databases at different times, resulting in data inconsistencies.
An additional problem that results from the architecture of the prior art system described in FIG. 1 is that the WorkStream system database is required to store information for extended periods of time in order to satisfy manufacturing process historical reporting. This is problematic and causes the WorkStream system processing to slow down because of the large amounts of data that must be maintained to support historical requests. There is a need for a system that transfers data out of the WorkStream system database immediately following its shipment from the WorkStream system database. Such a system would thereby transfer the responsibility of historical reporting away from the WorkStream database so that the WorkStream system would only be responsible for timely tracking and transference of production information regarding products and materials within a manufacturing facility.
According to the invention, a system and method for tracking movement of devices, such as integrated circuits, at remotely located facilities, wherein the method is implemented by performing a plurality of steps. In the first step, codes are assigned to the devices to identify product information, including the manufacturing facility, the device type, lead characteristics of the devices and at least one test flow indicator that is used to direct testing of the devices. In the second step, the devices are processed according to the process steps, defined in the system. In response to the step of processing, the system receives processing data in near real-time at each of the remotely located facilities. In response to the step of receiving processing data, the system""s Manufacturing Reference Database aggregates manufacturing process information. The manufacturing process information includes quantities of the devices processed, based on multiple levels of product groupings according to the codes assigned to the respective devices. The aggregation of manufacturing process information is accomplished by receiving manufacturing process information from remotely located facilities on a transaction-by-transaction basis, storing and then transmitting the manufacturing process information to other corporate subsystems in near real-time.
The above summary of the present invention is not intended to describe each step in the method or all functionality of the Manufacturing Reference Database (MRD) system utilized in the present invention. The figures in the detailed description which follow more particularly exemplify the embodiments.